LIFE Hidden Hollywood: Rare Images of a Golden Age

By The Editors of LIFE

Revisit an era when intimacy between celebrities and journalists was revealing and genuine. In this all-new special edition from LIFE, Hidden Hollywood: Rare Images of a Golden Age, you will gain access to the world of classic Hollywood luminaries in various settings including "Before They Were Famous," "Behind the Scenes," "At Home Alone" and more.

Gain access to the world of classic Hollywood luminaries including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jack Nicholson and so many more when they were on set, in their homes, amidst their love affairs and with their families and friends. With essays that enhance the stunning photography to lend them both a sense of time and place and anecdotes revealing little-known facts about some of the most enduring stars of our time, Hidden Hollywood makes for compulsive reading and viewing of an age where reality TV did not exist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Life
• Release date: Jun 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683302414

Book preview

COLLECTION.

Introduction

By J.I. Baker

ALFRED EISENSTAEDT/LIFE/THE PICTURE COLLECTION

LIFE FIXTURE SOPHIA LOREN and her favorite photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, are shown above in 1975. The two shared a friendship that led to great photographs in the pages of the magazine, where Eisie was equally a fixture behind the scenes.

When LIFE as we know it was launched in 1936, movies were firmly ensconced as the country’s predominant popular entertainment. And with such films as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage released that year, cinema was well on its way to becoming the 20th-century art form.

However, the industry was still in its youth, if not infancy. The silent film era had ended only a decade earlier, and celebrities had yet to exert their overweening sway as ersatz American royalty. But as the influence of the dream machine grew, LIFE gained unprecedented insider access, fueled by the fact that stars trusted the magazine—particularly its photographers. Sophia Loren, showcased in these pages, had a special connection to staff lensman Alfred Eisenstaedt, for instance. Their relationship was, by all accounts, imbued with a warm affection.

Yet Loren was hardly the only one. Henry Fonda opened his Connecticut retreat to LIFE, revealing a deceptively domestic-looking portrait of a dysfunctional family (he was a famously withholding dad). And Frank Sinatra let LIFE into his raucous world on- and off-stage. We also dropped in on directors Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock; their star Shirley MacLaine; her brother, Warren Beatty; his lovers Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Natalie Wood . . . and many, many more.

In LIFE’s last issue as a weekly (December 29, 1972), stories about Northern Ireland and Nixon in China were interspersed with pieces on Liza Minnelli (she had emerged that year as an outlandishly engaging performer) and old standby Elizabeth Taylor (she was a grandmother who had just turned 40, but we’d been covering her since her teens).

At a time when access to movie stars has become increasingly controlled, it’s thrilling to revisit an era when intimacy between celebrities and journalists (and thereby readers) was revealing and genuine. In these pages, you’ll gain access to the world of classic Hollywood luminaries—their sets, mansions, love affairs, families, and friendships—well before reality TV left nothing to the imagination . . . except reality.

Though celebrities are the lifeblood of most popular magazines today, the concept wasn’t necessarily quick to catch on.

Twenty-three issues after launch, LIFE’s first celebrity cover